Rancho Del Muerto and Other Stories of Adventure from «Outing» by Various Authors

“Why not?” she cried, waxing enthusiastic. “Picture the scene. Enter lovers on ‘steam-roller, followed by incensed father in – in – ”

“In an electric-car,” I supplied experimentally.

“Pshaw! don’t be foolish!” she exclaimed thanklessly. “Followed by father in a light gig, drawn by a spirited horse. Overtakes lovers – demands his daughter – young man respectfully declines to give her up. Old gentleman prepares to come and take her. Is about to descend from gig when steamroller whistles, spirited horse begins to prance, he is obliged to keep tight hold of reins – ”

“Very good!” I put in approvingly. “Stern parent threatens direst vengeance, horse cavorts alarmingly, parent rages unavailingly, resolute lover pushes throttle wide open with one hand and retains firm grip upon the helm with the other.”

“While the devoted loveress, with her own dainty hands, shovels in coal and encourages him to stand firm – ”

“By the way, that reminds me of something,” I interrupted and, getting off my elevated seat, I bent down and opened the furnace-door; “I rather think I should have given Antaeus his supper before now.”

In truth, I had neglected the fire altogether too long. I hastily threw in more coal, but it was already too late to avert the consequences of my forgetfulness. The pressure of steam was diminishing and continued to diminish in spite of all my efforts to prevent it. Back fell the indicator upon the dial, and more and more slowly worked the machinery as the power behind it became less and less.

“We shall not reach the top of the hill at the present rate,” remarked my companion. “The vital spark appears to be in danger of extinction, so to speak.”

“In very great danger,” I sorrowfully assented as, with one last feeble effort, Antaeus wearily gave up the struggle.

“Nor is that the worst of it,” I added, filled with a sudden apprehension.

“What do you mean?” she asked, disquieted by my manner, though not yet divining the inevitable outcome of the existing state of affairs.

“You had better descend to terra firma unless you want to go back down hill faster than you came up,” I replied significantly.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, comprehending the danger.

“Yes; the attraction of gravitation is going to take us back a deal faster than Antaeus ever traveled before. Shall I help you out?”

“Can’t you put on the brakes?”

“There are none; the builders of this machine did not foresee such a contingency as this. It was not to be supposed that Antaeus ever would fall into the unskillful hands of a bungling, blundering amateur,” said I, calling up hard names for myself from out of the depths of my humiliation.

“Don’t reproach yourself,” she begged; “it is I who am to be blamed.”

“Shall I not help you out before it is too late?” I interposed, as Antaeus began to gather way.

“What are you going to do,” she demanded.

“Oh, I shall stick to the ship,” I answered grimly.

“But you will get hurt if you do,” she objected.

“Antaeus will get hurt if I don’t. Come!”

“No; I shall stay on board, too,” she declared heroically. “Now don’t try and persuade me to desert, for I shall not do it. Can’t I be of some use?”

Seeing that she was firm in her resolve to stand by me, I gratefully accepted her offer of assistance, which indeed, was of considerable value. It was important that I should keep a firm hold upon the steering wheel, to prevent the craft from yawing, and, unless I were to be continually screwing my head about in a very painful position, I could not very well see the road over which we were traveling. From a position between the coal-boxes behind me – now the front of the conveyance – she could keep a look-out and pass the word to me when it became necessary to correct the deviations in our course. Without her help, it is more than probable that I should have run Antaeus ignominiottsly, perhaps disastrously, into a ditch before reaching the foot of the incline. Even as it was, I had my hands full.

During the ride, which certainly was one of the most disquieting, mentally and physically, that I ever have taken, we said very little to each other. I gripped the wheel, and she grasped the iron sides of the coal-bunkers, between which she stood, opening her lips only to call, “right! left!” or “steady!” as I had hastily instructed her to do for my guidance in steering. So we rumbled and rattled and jolted on down the hill, at continually increasing speed, until at length we reached the base, and I drew a deep breath of relief at knowing that the worst was over.

Arrived upon a level, our momentum gradually expended itself. From an estimated ten-mile rate – which had seemed terrific – we slowed to a five, to a three, to a one, to a snail’s pace, and then something occurred which, although not threatening any danger to us personally, filled our minds with the liveliest anxiety for the safety of others. Antaeus came to a stand-still just across the railway track.

“Well?” said my passenger, inquiringly.

“Well,” I returned, blankly, as I pulled my watch from my pocket, “this is – interesting, to say the least.”

“Are there – how about trains?” she queried anxiously.

During the jolting of our forced – and forcible – descent our lantern had gone out; but there was an electric lamp near, and by its light I managed to read the hour upon my watch-dial.

“There is a train leaving the city at ten, due here at ten-seventeen; it now lacks five minutes of that. I must go to the station and report that the way is blocked. I am sorry to leave you – or would you prefer going while I wait here?”

“I think it will be better for you to go.”

“Very well, then; I’ll not be long.”

This promise of mine was ill-advised. I hurried up the track to the station, only to find it locked and deserted. It was not the principal station of the town, being one of the half-dozen smaller ones strung at short intervals along the line. In all probability it would not be opened until a few minutes before train-time. As I knew the outcoming train would stop at that station, and thus give me a chance to warn the engineer of the obstruction ahead, I did not feel particularly alarmed at not finding the agent at once. Still I was conscious of some nervous uneasiness while awaiting his arrival.

At last he came leisurely across the street, jingling his keys as he walked. As soon as he stepped foot upon the platform I went to ‘him and began to tell my story. I had not proceeded far with it ere he interrupted me with a startled ejaculation.

“Great Scott! The White Mountain express!”

“What? What do you mean?” I gasped,

“New train – put on yesterday – passes here on the way in at ten-ten, and it’s more than that now!” he exclaimed in staccato, as he hastily unlocked the station door, and, putting in his hand, seized a red lantern that had been sitting ready lighted on the floor within.

He did not waste any more time with me, but rushed along to the end of the platform, and then began to run with all his might down the track. I succeeded in following him at not too great a distance, although I was turning sick and giddy with all sorts of horrible apprehensions. Visions of a frightful wreck photographed themselves on my brain, the shrieks of the dying sounded prophetically in my ears, and in the midst of it all I was selfishly deploring the fact that I should be called on to pay the damages – at least to Antaeus – and wondering if I could contrive to get a hardware discount off the market price of steam-rollers.

The crossing was still hidden from us around a curve when a shrill whistling broke upon my startled ears.

“T-o-o-t! – t-o-o-t! Toot! toot!”

The agent uttered an explosive invocation to the Deity, and added in tones of despair:

“We’re too late; she’s onto us!”

Still we staggered mechanically forward, until suddenly, with a cry of warning, the agent sprang aside, and the express went thundering by.

“See here, young man,” my companion exclaimed angrily, “if this is a put-up job – ”

“But it is not!” I interposed with indignant protest. “I don’t understand it any better than you do. Certainly I left Ant – the roller sprawled across both tracks.”

“Well, I guess it ain’t there now,” dryly remarked the agent, watching the rear lights of the fast-receding train, until they were swallowed up in the glare of the “local’s” head-light. “I must run back,” he added, recalled to a sense of his duties. “You take this lantern and go and see if the outward track is clear. Stand between the rails and swing the lantern if it ain’t. I’ll tell the engineer to go slow and be on the lookout.”

In another minute I was at the crossing. I looked up and down the street for Antaeus, but neither he nor the young lady were to be seen. If that Hercules of a locomotive actually had lifted him into the air and carried him off his absence could not have been more conspicuous. But naturally such a feat>could not have been accomplished, nor had it been attempted.

The real explanation of the mysterious disappearance was this. During my absence the fire under the boiler had been getting up, until finally enough steam had made to start the machinery and so the roller had been enabled to roll itself away out of danger.

I was about to start toward town, under the supposition that Antaeus had taken that direction, when I chanced to recollect that with the levers as I had left them he naturally must go just the opposite way – that is, retrace the course over which he had lately come. Accordingly I set out on the run toward the hill. Near the foot of it I found him, diagonaled off the road-side with his nose against a tree, loudly hissing in impotent rage at the unwelcome bar to his progress.

I jumped into the engineer’s place, reversed the machinery, and without very much trouble succeeded in getting him back into the road and started on the homeward way. I was putting to myself an uneasy question as to the whereabouts of my passenger, when, to my relief, I heard her voice close at hand.

“Is it all right?” she inquired anxiously; “I feared it was going to blow up or something, it made such a horribly distressing noise.”

“That very noise was a guarantee that he was not going to blow up,” I replied, bringing Antaeus to a stop. “He was merely getting rid of superfluous steam through the safety-.valve. I am very glad to find you again. Will you ride? I think we shall get on smoothly this time.”

Rather hesitatingly she allowed me to help her in. Then, after taking the precaution to add some fuel to the fire, and to inspect the steam and water indicators by the light of my borrowed red lantern, I opened the throttle and started on again.

“Did the train frighten you?” I bethought myself to ask, presently.

“Oh, don’t speak of it,” she returned with a shudder; “I heard it coming from two or three miles away, and when it got nearer and nearer and you did not return I was almost frantic. But I couldn’t do anything. I don’t think it was more than a quarter of a mile distant, with the light gleaming along the rails and making it seem even nearer, when the roller began to move – but, oh, how slowly! I thought I should – well, if my hair hasn’t turned gray from that scare it never will do so until the natural time for it comes, I am sure.”

“Well, the old fellow got off in time, evidently.”

“Yes; but with hardly a second to spare. He hadn’t cleared the rails of the other track when the train passed. It was a frightfully narrow margin.”

“You were not on board all this while, I hope.”

“Oh, no; that would have been too foolhardy. But when I saw it was making off I didn’t want it – I mean him– to go careering and cavorting about the country alone, so I climbed up and tried to take command. You showed me how to use the reversing-lever, and it all seemed easy when you were here, but when I was alone I didn’t dare touch it for fear something disastrous would happen. All I ventured to do was to take the wheel and keep, him in the road – or rather try to do so, for I didn’t succeed very well. My strength was not equal to it. He swerved a little and then got to going more and more on the bias, until at last, despite all I could do to the contrary, he ran off against a tree and was obliged to stop. Soon afterward that hissing noise began, and, fearing an explosion, I ran and got behind the wall on the other side of the street, and then – then you came. I don’t think I ever was more rejoiced to see anybody in all my life.”

I resisted a temptation to make a speech, which, however much in earnest I was, might have sounded silly, and contented myself with remarking that I was glad to have arrived in such good time, and I turned my attention to the taking of her – and Antaeus – safe home.

I could not get to sleep after going to bed that night. The evening’s experience of itself was hardly a soporific, but there was yet another matter to occupy my thoughts and prevent my sleeping. Should I venture at the next favorable opportunity to put a certain question to a certain person? If I did so what answer should I receive? I hoped and I feared and I doubted concerning the sentiments of the said certain person toward my unworthy self. I revolved the thing in my mind until there seemed to be little else there but revolution. Progress in any direction, certainly there was none. My body was hardly less restless than my mind.

At three o’clock it flashed across me like a revelation, that I was hungry. I had eaten a light supper hours ago, and now my stomach was eloquent with emptiness; while the blood which should be doing good service there was pulsing madly about in my brain to no purpose. I went down stairs and inspected the contents of the ice-chest. Roast pork and brown bread make rather a hearty late supper, but breakfast time was so near I thought I would risk them – and a good deal of them.

Returning to my room, I set a lamp upon a stand at the head of the bed and, taking the first book that came to hand – it chanced to be an Italian grammar – I began to read. I had gone as far in the introduction as “CC like t-ch in hatchet,” when I grew drowsy. I laid down the book, my eyelids drooped, and there is good circumstantial evidence that a moment later I fell asleep, lying on my back with the upper half of my body bent into the form of a bow.

My slumbers were visited by a dream – a nightmare, composed, I estimate, of cold roast pork and brown bread, uncomfortable bodily position, the memory of certain occurrences in my past history, and an event to be described later. In this dream Antaeus figured largely. He seemed to come rolling across the bed, and me, until he had stopped upon my chest and stomach.

“What are you doing?” I asked in alarm. “Do you know you are crushing me? Get away!”

“I dare say I am. I weigh fifteen tons,” Antaeus replied, heavily jocose. “I say,” he continued with a burst of anger, “you are an honorable, high-minded sort of person, you are. What do you mean by treating me so? Have you forgotten our compact? I have given you every chance man could ask for with her; what have you done for me in return? Nothing. Even worse than nothing. To faithlessness you have added treachery. Not content with deceiving me, you have sought to destroy me. I suppose you hoped to see my débris strewn along the iron way.”

I was conscience-stricken by his accusations; but I could refute a part of them. “Oh, no! oh, no!” I protested, “it was an accident, I assure you. So far from desiring such a thing, I declare that I cannot even imagine your being reduced to débris. I – ”

“Bah!” roared Antaeus, and in his rage he began to belch forth smoke – smoke so thick and black that I thought I should be stifled by it. In another moment I awoke gasping.

One feature of my dream was a reality – the smoke. The room was filled with it, and there were flames beside. As nearly as I can guess, the situation on which I opened my eyes had been thus brought about. While I slept the wind had risen and, pushing inward the shade at the open window, had pressed it against the small, unstable stand until the latter had been tipped over, bringing the lighted lamp to the floor. The muslin curtains had caught fire; from them the straw matting, kerosene-soaked, had flamed up, so that now a pretty lively blaze was in progress.

I sprang off the bed, made a snatch at some of my clothes, and got out of the room as soon as possible. After I had helped save everything portable, that could be saved without risk to life, I went and stood before the house in the cool air of the early dawn and watched the struggle between flames and flood. In the midst of my perturbation I noticed something that struck me as being worthy of remark. I had left Antaeus at the edge of the roadway before our gate; now the fire-engine, Electra, had been drawn up beside him. He was maintaining strict silence, but I hoped he was being well entertained, for Electra kept up an incessant buzzing – woman like, quite willing to do all of the talking. At any rate my share of our compact was now fulfilled; Antaeus and I were quits.

In the later morning I saw the young lady. My misfortunes called forth from her expressions of sincerest pity; indeed, she bitterly reproached herself for having been the direct cause of them. When I described my narrow escape from death by suffocation, she grew so pale that I thought she must feel considerable interest in me, although I immediately reflected that it could not be very pleasant to have one’s next-door neighbor roasted alive.

By-and-by I told her of my two dreams, and of the way in which I finally kept faith with Antaeus.

“It is a shame that you had to burn up your house to do it,” she commented, “when a brush-heap might have answered the purpose quite as well.”

I thought – or I hoped – that the time had come for making a decisive move with some chance of its being effective. I furtively possessed myself of her hand.

“I should not regret the house so much,” said I, “if I might hope you would deign to extend to me the favor with which Electra has made Antaeus happy.”

This was bunglingly put, but she understood me well enough, although she murmured in reply:

“You have it already; we are – acquainted. Surely you don’t want – anything – more.”

But she did not withdraw her hand.

I have just heard that the town fathers contemplate purchasing Antaeus and giving him a permanent residence “within our borders.” If this report be true, I shall use all my influence – from motives of gratitude – to have him lodged beside the engine-house, so that he may be near his bewitching Electra.

WHICH MISS CHARTERIS? By C. G. Rogers

AVING completed his breakfast, Mr. Percy Darley seated himself in a n easy-chair, facing the cheerful grate-fire of ruddy anthracite, placed his toes upon the fender, and relapsed into a thoughtful contemplation of Leonard’s letter.

“You had best come, my dear boy,” said the letter. “It is a sleepy little town – one of those idyllic Acadian places of which you used to rave when you were tired of the city and fretful at her ways. We can smoke our pipes and chat over the old days, before a fire in my big, old-fashioned grate. There is a noble stretch of clear ice here now. Our little river is frozen over, solid and safe, and the darkest prospects do not foreshadow another fall of snow for a fortnight. The sleighing is superb; and, as Madeline Bridges says, ‘the nights are splendid.’ Pack up your traps and come.”

The invitation was an alluring one, thought Darley. His head ached, and his heart was sick of the everlasting round of parties and calls and suppers. What a vision of beatific rest that idea of a chat over old times! Ah, dear old times of childhood and youth, when our tears are as ephemeral as our spendthrift dimes!

There seemed to be only one rational preclusion – to wit, Miss Charteris. Not that he thought Miss Charteris would personally object to his absence, but, rather, that he had an objection to leaving Miss Charteris. Miss Charteris was an heiress, and a handsome woman; to be brief, Miss Charteris being rich, and our friend Darley having the millstone of debt about his neck, he had determined, if possible, to wed her. If he went away, however, at this period of his acquaintance, when the heiress and he were becoming fast friends, some one else would doubtless step into the easy shoes of attention.

So Darley went down into the city and telegraphed his friend Leonard that he would be in Dutton on the evening train. He thought he should like to see Miss Charteris, however, before going. He walked back slowly along a particularly favorite drive of hers, and presently met this young lady with her stylish little turn-out, looking very radiant and happy on this bright winter morning.

There was some one with her – a fact Darley noticed with no great feeling of pleasure. It was not a strange thing; but, following the course of things as they had been for the past few weeks, it should have been Darley himself. This morning it was a sallow, dark young man whom Darley did not remember having seen before.

Darley explained that he was about to leave town for a few weeks, as soon as Miss Charteris had drawn up alongside the pavement to wish him goodmorning. Then she introduced him to her companion. “A very old friend – Mr. Severance – just arrived from Australia.”

“Dear old Dutton!” said Miss Charteris, looking reminiscent. “You must not break any trusting hearts down there, Mr. Darley; for the Dutton maids are not only lovely, but proverbially trusting.”

“You know Dutton, then?” Darley answered, surprised.

“Oh, yes! I have a very dear aunt in Dutton – oh, but you will see! I spent some of my happiest days there. So did you, I think, Lawrence.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Severance reflectively, “days almost as happy as the present day. Don’t you think, Mr. Darley, that a man’s best years cluster round the age of ten?”

Darley could not help agreeing to this. All men, provided their youth has been happy, think so. Darley said good-by, and walked on.

Who was this fellow Severance? She called him Lawrence —Lawrence, by Jove! There was something in it – rather old schoolmates, too, they had been, and what might they not be now? It was more pique than disappointment which caused Darley to wish momentarily that he was not scheduled for Dutton. However, he must stand the hazard of the die.

His things were soon packed; he also supplied himself with a box of the cigars Leonard and he used to love in “the days that are no more,” and a copy of “Outing.” And ten hours later the train, with a jovial roar, ran into the little town, where the lights gleamed cozily against the snowy background, and the sleigh-bells seemed to bid him a merry, musical welcome.

A short, erect, trimly built man with a finely chiseled face and a brown skin that seemed to breathe of pine woods and great wide, sunlit rivers grasped Darley’s hand as he stepped to the platform.

“Well, old man!” exclaimed the brown man, cheerily. “Awfully glad you’ve come! Come this way! Here we are, Joseph! Step in!”

“By Jove! it is wintry here, isn’t it?” said Darley, as he slid under the buffalo robes. “What a peerless night!”

After supper the two men made themselves thoroughly comfortable in great leather chairs before Leonard’s promised fire, and smoked and chatted.

“You look just the same, old boy,” said Leonard, scanning Darley carefully. “But the hair is a little thin in front there, and I think I see the growing spot of baldness, as Ike Marvel has it. Did you ever read that great book of his, ‘A Bachelor’s Reveries?’ No? Well, you should. I find it sweetest company. Yes, you are the same old sobersides – a great deal deeper than you look, as the little boy said when he fell into the well. And not married yet, eh?”

“Who, the little boy?”

“No; you, you rogue! I should have thought you would have gone off long ago.”

“Why?”

“A hard question to answer. Are we not always in a condition of mild wonder that our friends have not gone over to the married ranks, when we ourselves have not? However, from floating gossip – that tongue’s flotsam – I have heard that you meditate going over.”

“Eh?” said Darley, pricking up his ears.

“Why,” answered Leonard, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, “Beau Brummel cannot pay court to a beauty without the world knowing it! I, even I, have heard of Miss Bella Charteris. She is not the sort of girl, if I may make so bold, that I would have imagined you pinning yourself to. I should have thought some quiet, sober, angelic little woman like – ”